Botany for Surveyors by Maria Suarez-Alvarez

I recently finished the Botany for Surveyors Course delivered by the Species Recovery Trust. It is an online course divided in 3 parts taught in 3 separate weeks. The main learning outcome of the course is to be able to identify 200 different plants from over 30 different families. The way it was distributed was in a pre-recorded video that was available for 24 hours at a time. The first 2 sessions were roughly 4 hours long (but there was a recommendation of spending 6 hours on them) and the last one lasted for 5 hours (mostly because there was a final test section at the end showcasing the 200 species taught in the 3 weeks). I personally spent over 6 hours in each video, stopping to take notes, re-watching the species that were more difficult to tell apart and re-doing the test to retain information. I tried to take some breaks too, as some of the species were new or similar to other species I already knew. The information was presented in a way in which was interesting, in some cases with mnemotechnics techniques that helped to remember better some specific characteristics and with short tests that helped to evaluate which plants needed more attention or to be relook at.

My first impression was that there was quite a lot of information for an online course and that trying to identify the plants through a photo was really challenging. However, when I got out on the wild in between sessions, I noticed that I felt more confident identifying plants, at least being able to classify them as part of a specific family using my notes, thanks to the main information I had learned during the training.

A pre-recording online training has the convenience of being accessible from anywhere, sometimes in a bigger umbrella of time (this specific one was accessible for 24 hours) and give the opportunity to repeat a part of the video presenting some information that might be more challenging or have not stuck well, or even just to pause the vide to take notes. I would highly recommend combining this theoretical approach with a practical side, in which the learning can be applied. I took pictures of some plants and came back to my notes, I compared online too, and I checked with my more knowledgeable colleagues when out (that’s how I discovered what I had identified as a Red Clover was actually a Greater Red Clover, which was not covered in the course and it is easy to be mistaken for).

In summary, it is completely recommended to do the course, probably better for a person with some previous botany knowledge and that have the time and resources to practice the theory learned during the course surveying in between online sessions.